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“But you won’t let me.” He brushed hair off her shoulders, ponytailed it in his hand behind her neck.
“No, babe, that’s not how we can be. The rich guy buying the poor little pole-dancing student an international airfare. I’m not that girl.”
“That girl who’s my girlfriend.”
She tipped forward, lifted her chin and nibbled on his bottom lip. It would be so easy to run away with him, but she’d been running away for years, she couldn’t break anymore promises to herself even with a man who made her ache to.
He let go her hair and wrapped his arms around her back. “I’ll take that.”
“It’s enough?” Rich men were supposed to pressure poor girls, supposed to get what they wanted and Reid was genetically engineered to be pushy.
“It’s everything.”
This rich man didn’t care that she danced for other men every night, that she wouldn’t give to him easily. This rich man wanted her to dance in the world’s best club. That was too good to be true, it should worry her. She pushed the insecurity aside. “You still need to get out of the city.”
“I’ll go dark instead. Stay inside, turn everything off.”
“Want company while you do that?”
He leaned away to look at her face. “Does my girlfriend want to stay over another night?”
“She’s thinking about it.”
“Unprecedented. I got used to the rationing.” He palmed her ass and brought her flush against a very nice erection. “Let’s see if I can persuade my girlfriend to spend the week.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
She uncrossed her ankles and unfolded her legs, stretching them into a side split so that when he tilted her hips she was as wide open to him as humanly possible. That made him swear as his eyes centered on her pussy.
And then he pushed his luck all over her body.
TWENTY-THREE
Dear Plus People,
It may have come to your attention that I was a giant jackass at the tenth anniversary function on Saturday night and in case you missed it, I’ll give you the skinny.
For a start I wasn’t invited. Why would I be, I was fired. Yeah, you read that correctly and I’ll come back to that. For now, you need to know I gate-crashed. This is the first of many embarrassing but necessary confessions I need to make. I put Kuch and Owen, Sarina and Nerida in a horribly difficult position. They could choose to chuck me out and make a scene or let me bully my way in. Because they’re gracious, generous and sensitive people who are proper adults, unlike myself, they let me stay.
Let’s move on to the next dumbass thing I did. I forced myself on to the official program and made a speech. And oh, what a speech. And let’s call it what it was. You were there. I was an asshole.
I stood up on that stage and told you all that without me you were C-grade. I said Ziggurat would fail and I had no faith in Owen as a leader. No wiggle room. I didn’t use those exact words, but that’s what I meant and that’s what you heard.
I was an asshole.
Because of me your Plus staff shares might not be worth what they were on Friday. Because of me, you might be worried about your job or whether Plus is still the right place to build a career.
I wish I could tell you I was drunk, or on drugs, or I’d fallen down and hit my head. I have no excuse for what I did, except that’s what an aforementioned asshole would do.
Take a step back. Kuch fired me. I know you were told I’d quit to explore new ideas. It was a lie. I was great at developing the vision for Plus. I was great at getting the company started with Owen, Sarina and Dev at my side. I’m shit-hot at lots of things. But I was bad at things that mattered most for where the company was at. I was difficult to work with. I micromanaged. I showed my temper and I sulked when I didn’t get my way. I was intimidating. I didn’t sexually harass anyone, but I might as well have. I was an asshole, and you know Plus has a no asshole rule, which for some inexplicable reason, I thought I was above.
I was wrong. I was given plenty of chances to change and I was too much of a dick to take advantage of them. Kuch and Owen were right to exit me. They’re more right than ever after Saturday night.
The exquisite irony of being fired from a company, expert in helping people work brilliantly in teams, for not playing well with others isn’t lost on me.
Needless to say, I didn’t take it well. I’ve lived and breathed Plus since college, losing it was a dreadful wrench, the stuff of cosmic nightmares, especially as it was my own fault. But that’s no justification for the fact you were made to suffer through a tantrum of epic proportions. I wore the dinner suit but I behaved like a spoilt brat.
I apologize unreservedly for being a giant asshole, both as your CEO for the last year and for the entitled crap I carried on with Saturday night.
